Church Recruiting Drive Targets Two-Year-Olds
Children as young as two are to be targeted as part of a new campaign to recruit young people back to the church, the Guardian has learned.
The Church of England is planning its first concerted drive to engage under- 18s after admitting that it is comprehensively failing to connect with children and teenagers.
Proposals will be put before the general synod in February that include a blueprint to set up breakfast, homework and sports clubs in schools as well as working in publicly funded toddler playgroups to spread the Christian word.
Guardian (thanks, KirstyJ)
“Dad Dancing” May Be The Result Of Evolution, Scientists Claim
Middle-aged men who embarrass their children with flamboyant dance moves now have the perfect excuse – evolution.
The cringeworthy “dad dancing” witnessed at wedding receptions every weekend may be an unconscious way in which ageing males repel the attention of young women, leaving the field clear for men at their sexual peak.
“The message their dancing sends out is ‘stay away, I’m not fertile’,” said Dr Peter Lovatt, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire who has compared the dancing styles and confidence levels of nearly 14,000 people.
Telegraph (thanks, KirstyJ)
Sixty 3,000 Year Old Headless Skeletons Discovered in Pacific Ocean
“When a team of archaeologists began excavating an old coral reef in Vanuatu in 2008 and 2009, they soon discovered it had served as a cemetery in ancient times. So far, 71 buried individuals have been recorded, giving new information on the islands’ inhabitants and their funeral rites.
“This is a groundbreaking discovery, as it is the oldest and biggest skeleton find ever in the Pacific Ocean; bigger cemeteries found further east are much younger,” says Mads Ravn, head of research at the University of Stavanger’s Museum of Archaeology in Norway.
Relatives did not treat their dead gently. Besides being headless, some of them had had their arms and legs broken, in order to fit into the coral reef cavities. Ravn suggests they may have been left to rot first, and buried later as skeletons.”
Read more at Science Daily
The Power Of Magical Thinking
Is the Tooth Fairy real? How about the garbage man? Those questions may seem trivial, but how young children answer them is an important indicator of cognitive development.
For years, imagination was thought of as a way for children to escape from reality, and once they reached a certain age, it was believed they would push fantasy aside and deal with the real world. But, increasingly, child-development experts are recognizing the importance of imagination and the role it plays in understanding reality. Imagination is necessary for learning about people and events we don’t directly experience, such as history or events on the other side of the world. For young kids, it allows them to ponder the future, such as what they want to do when they grow up.
Wall Street Journal (thanks, Tammy)
Happy Christmas
Rather tired and dreamy and overstuffed after a long and lovely day of great food, company and wine. And the JJ Abrams Star Trek on the home cinema. I hope you’ve all had a lovely one. For those not following me on Twitter – I have been away filming a documentary and then on holiday, so apologies for my recent poor turnout on the blog.
I do hope you’ve enjoyed your Christmas days, or indeed are still enjoying them for our far distant friends. Tra-la and ho ho ho.
xx
Merry Christmas or – insert other celebration here- message
We were going to dress Derren up in a Santa outfit or photoshop something clever, but we found this totally awesome picture of wolf-deer instead, they have totally excellent antlers!
We’ll be back in a few days and judging by the numbers not many have been here anyway. You’re probably all stuffing turkey or getting ready to ask for a refund on all the stuff you got that you don’t want or maybe you’re like Phillis, hiding in a dark room with a weeks supply of TUC biscuits and a pile of “trilogy” DVD releases and shouting “Bah Humbug!” at the passing shadows.
A special shout out to all of those of you born over these few days – you get shafted by the whole “Oh! Yeah! Here’s a birthday AND Christmas present” thing – so our hearts go out to you. It sucks, so we say “Happy Birthday to you” we hope you have an extra nice day.
To the rest of you we say – enjoy the crap TV, over eating and cheap booze and have a happy holiday.
BT Crew.
How Santa Does It: Clones, Wormholes and Memory-Elimination Devices
The Truth about Santa: Wormholes, Robots, and What Really Happens on Christmas Eve
“Perhaps you—like me—are disappointed by the amateur calculations done every December that purport to show how Santa couldn’t possibly deliver presents to all the good boys and girls in the world. Okay, fine: if Santa were just a dude in a sleigh (even one powered by some very fast reindeer), his task would be very hard, perhaps even impossible. And yet! These are the holidays; I do not want to be burdened with what is impossible. I want to know how it can be done. I want to know how—without resort to magic, that lazy storytelling crutch—the good Saint Nick runs his global one-night present-delivery operation.
Fortunately, in The Truth about Santa: Wormholes, Robots, and What Really Happens on Christmas Eve, the veteran science writer Gregory Mone has for the first time uncovered the advanced technological tricks that Santa must rely on to make real what was once mere fantasy.”
Review from Scientific American (Thanks Berber)
Dark Liquor Makes For Worse Hangovers
“A new study may help drinkers pick their poison. In a head-to-head comparison, bourbon gave drinkers a more severe hangover than vodka, report Damaris Rohsenow of Brown University and colleagues in an upcoming issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
But vodka drinkers aren’t off the hook: Drinkers’ sleep suffered equally with both drinks, as did their performance on tasks requiring attention and quick responses. Understanding the lingering effects of alcohol after a night of heavy drinking is important for people who engage in safety-sensitive tasks, such as driving, while hung over Rohsenow says.
The researchers recruited 95 healthy young adults, ages 21 to 33, and gave them caffeine-free cola mixed with bourbon, vodka or tonic water. The drinking ended when participants’ breath-alcohol concentrations hit an average of 0.11, well over the legal intoxication limit. Participants were then hooked up to sleep monitors, which record brain activity, and allowed to sleep it off. At 7 a.m. the next day, the researchers roused the subjects from bed (a wake-up that did not include coffee or aspirin) and asked them to rate the severity of their hangovers.
Overall, bourbon drinkers reported feeling worse than vodka drinkers, rating higher on scales that measure the severity of hangover malaise, including headache, nausea, loss of appetite and thirst. It should come as no surprise that alcohol drinkers said they felt much worse than those who had drunk only tonic water.”
Read more at Wired
Kim Peek, Man Who Inspired ‘Rain Man,’ Dies at 58
Kim Peek, the inspiration for the Academy Award-winning 1988 movie ‘Rain Man,’died of a heart attack Saturday at age 58, according to the Deseret News of Salt Lake City, Utah, Peek’s home. He was known as a mega-savant who had mental handicaps but also an heightened ability to memorize and recite massive amounts of information.
Peek was an expert on 15 broad categories, including math, literature, sports, classical music, history and geography. He had memorized more than 12,000 books and could compute complex mathematical equations in his head. But he was born without the connective tissue needed to bring the left and right sides of his brain together. Consequently, he was unable to filter information and often had to twist a cord or hum to himself so he could block out distractions, according to the Deseret News.
Kim and his dad first met ‘Rain Man’ screenwriter Barry Morrow at a convention in the ’80s and two years later Morrow had written and sold the ‘Rain Man’ script. Dustin Hoffman spent time with Kim and with other savants while preparing for the role and Morrow later gave Kim the Academy Award he won for Best Screenplay. Kim carried it with him on his travels.
Full article with loads more You Tube videos at Movie Phone
